


Saint Charlie

by neville



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Background Relationships, Charlie makes food, Comfort, Comfort Food, Falling In Love, Injury, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Panic Attacks, Percy Weasley's Home for Unstable Teenagers, Post-War, Recovery, ok that tag is a joke but also a feature of the story, these tags make it sound so sad but they get happy, they're cute and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 09:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11056104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: Draco Malfoy becomes an alcoholic; Charlie Weasley decides to help rebuild him.





	1. Chapter 1

The doorbell at Malfoy Manor rings. It’s Thursday, and it’s six in the evening.

Answering the door is an effort, because mostly it’s people here to spit in his face or curse at him for being a Death Eater; the other week, he had to block a curse and slammed the door in front of him, breathless, and he’s left the door shut ever since. He can’t bring himself to open it, to fight anyone else.

But it’s been a week, and he holds his wand tightly in his hand as he ventures to the door, squinting out through the peephole. He could use some sort of spell, he’s sure, but he doesn’t trust his own magic anymore – every now and then, he boils a pot to near-eruption or he collapses a washing line without ever meaning to, and it feels like he’s losing himself. Losing touch with his wand. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to connect with it.

Standing on the porch is the infinitely recognisable stab of red that means it’s a Weasley, and this would mean any kind of trouble for him, but somehow the trouble is magnified when he recognises the short stocky figure that is Charlie, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, something surprisingly nonchalant about him. Draco knows why he’s visiting: for the past several weeks, he’s turned up drunk in the night to the war survivors’ unit at St Mungo’s, and Charlie is always there, seated on the plastic chair by the doors, staring impassively. He never seems to judge; that’s what Draco hates about him. He can never tell what Charlie is feeling. He can just feel Charlie’s arms holding him steady, guiding him to a seat, hear the sound of Charlie’s words, spoken with the tiniest foreign lilt to show for his years away.

Draco had asked him to speak all in Romanian once, so drunk he had been given a bed and a bucket to throw up in – and Charlie had, for hours, long past the end of his shift, waiting for someone to arrive on Draco’s behalf.

 But the fact that Charlie is here means that there are going to be questions. Inquiries. He’s going to ask about the drinking, squint into the liquor cupboards, make that face of inevitable judgment. Everybody judges; he can pretend he doesn’t when it’s three in the morning, but in the cold light of day, he’s hardly going to be able to reserve it.

And yet he can’t not open the door.

“Hi,” says Charlie. “I thought I would pop round. Check how you are.”

“I’m fine,” Draco says coolly. “Surprisingly enough. I’m trying to eat, peculiarly enough, as it’s tea time.”

“Oh, sorry.” (The worst part is that he _is_ , too.) “I can go. I just wanted to see that you were alright.”

Draco sighs. He’s come all this way, and for someone to care about him in a way that doesn’t involve punching his lights out is rare these days. He steps aside. “Come in. I could use the company. House-elves aren’t exactly _riveting_.” Charlie gives him a half-smile that’s enough to make him falter as he steps in, not sure whether or not to take off his heavy boots, but Draco doesn’t say anything, so he continues through the labyrinthine corridors into the kitchen, a vast expanse of crockery that feels like it’s as big as his and Ron’s rooms combined on its own, maybe even larger; he tries not to stare. The kitchen is startlingly modern in stark contrast to the Edgar Allan Poe architecture of the rest of the manor, and Draco notices the staring. “I blew it up.”

“You blew it up?” Charlie arches his eyebrows (he’s never quite mastered Bill’s single-eyebrow quirk). There are situations, he knows, where a _reparo_ can do nothing but perhaps blow ash from a pile, but he’s not seen one save for anything that’s been too close within the blast radius of a dragon.

“It was a mistake,” Draco says, but doesn’t elaborate. He didn’t _mean_ to, but he had been unstable, and having magic at the tip of his fingertips while being unstable was something that had gone badly: he had exploded like a firecracker, more than once, and the grief had toppled the entire kitchen, set it alight in an angry blaze so immensely powerful he had barely been able to quell it. He’d thought that he was going to burn. He’d been expecting to burn.

He wouldn’t have minded burning.

“Have you put dinner on?” Charlie asks. Draco shakes his head. “I’ll make it. Just sit down.”

Draco does, in a stool by the marble table, by a golden bowl of fruits that are now rotting from neglect. He’ll throw them out someday, maybe the day when he doesn’t feel like them, relate to them. “Why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Making me dinner, Weasley, what do you think? Most of your kind just want to hex me to the nines.”

Charlie shrugs. “I want to see that you’re alright. I don’t think it’s fair to cut people off and to not offer them support just because they might’ve been on the wrong side – everybody suffers, and everybody deserves support, and from the remorse you’ve shown, I think it’s downright cruel that people are leaving you like this and just coming to you with abuse. It’s unkind and I’m sorry.” He’s raiding the cupboards, still sleek and polished, barely opened; they’re well-stocked, full of cooking ingredients, and by the Muggle microwave, Charlie finds a selection of cookbooks.

He makes Cajun chicken lasagne. Draco is almost jealous of the ease with which he uses his magic, a mixture of wand and wandless, verbal and silent, like a dance – he’s never been able to cook this easily, but Charlie is well-practised from helping his mother out and from having to cook for himself, an endeavour that hadn’t proved particularly successful for a long time until he had gotten the hang of it.

“Don’t apologise,” Draco says, venomous. “Nobody’s sorry. You’re just here to gloat.”

“Why would I be here to gloat? What have I got to gloat about?”

“Your presumably intact kitchen. The fact you can still use your magic without worrying that you’re going to destroy something. The support.”

“Where _are_ your parents?” Charlie asks, hunting down the dishes. He almost drools – there’s at least one type of every dish, a variety of sizes, everything he could ever ask for. He wishes his own was this well-stocked – it doesn’t have the charm of the dishes from here and there and this country and that and passed down through the generations at The Burrow, but at The Burrow, he can also never find a dish perfectly sized for lasagne, but here one is, readily available to him.

“They went on holiday, to get away. I said I wanted to stay here.” They’d tried, Merlin knows they’d _tried_ to get Draco to go with them, almost forced him – but he had needed to stay. He knew in his bones that these were problems no amount of running away could hide.

“And your friends? The boy who carried you to the ward that first night?”

Theo Nott; Draco doesn’t remember much of that night, save the soft concern on Charlie’s features and Theo’s arm slung around him like his life depended on it (in a way, it did). But there’s no asking Theo for any help: ever since he’d enrolled at a Muggle university, he’s been unreachable – a hermit. Most of his other friends he doesn’t want to associate with anymore; they’ve probably changed, too, but they’re like anchors in the past.

Charlie takes the silence as an answer and doesn’t push it. Draco both loves and hates that silence; a part of him wants Charlie to demand something, demand an answer, but being forced to answer questions is something that bothers him – he feels like he lives permanently within a state between wanting to hug Charlie and wanting to punch him.

Instead of eating at the vast dining table in the miserable dining room, they eat around the table in the kitchen, Charlie binning the rotting fruits on Draco’s behalf. “If you want me to bring you new fruits every week,” he says, “I will, but please, don’t sit there with fruit that’s going black in that bowl. That can’t be good for you.” He sets the table with a flick of his wand, gleefully, and pours them both a glass of water. “Here we go. Poftă bună!”

Draco sits and stares out of the window for most of the meal, at the rain slowly dripping down the pane of glass, but he eats heartily – probably because this is the first proper meal he’s had in weeks, and because it seems to fill a hole in him. He doesn’t feel so empty or so miserable – it’s still there, lingering, but for the most part he feels like, for now, it’s not so bad. In this moment, it’s not all terrible.

Spurred by the amount of food in the house, Charlie bakes a chocolate cake with possibly the best sponge consistency of any cake that Draco has ever eaten in his life. He revels in the amount of ingredients at his fingertips – usually, to make anything, he has to take a trip or two to the nearby grocery store (the second is because he’s chronic for forgetting something on the first; everyone who works there knows him by name now). Draco never did a lot of chocolate cake eating, seeing it as something lower, for someone like Crabbe or Goyle, but he doesn’t have a reputation to uphold anymore – it’s already shattered – and he finds himself eating it anyway, with his fingers (“look,” Charlie had said, “we can waste a fork, or we can have fun and make a mess”). Draco isn’t sure he’s finding this fun, but he _is_ making a mess, scattering crumbs across the marble.

It’s almost cathartic.

Everything about Charlie is catharsis.

And Draco fucking hates it.

He makes him leave after they’ve finished dinner, before he even puts the plates away, because he can’t stand the sight of him anymore. He can’t stand his pity.

“Fuck off,” he says. “Just fuck off.”

Charlie wants to ask if he should clean up first, put all the plates away and back into the cupboards and make sure all the ingredients are safely sealed and put away, but he can sense he’s not wanted, so he lets Draco push him to the front door and out, sneering for him not to come back, that he doesn’t want to be treated like a child.

Charlie wants to argue that he’s just treating Draco the way he needs to be treated: with respect, and with care for his health and wellbeing, and if that includes cooking him comfort meals, then so be it. But he says nothing, pulls the hood over his head, and walks to the corner shop, Apparating home with a bag full of snacks.

He’d never admit it, but Charlie doesn’t eat much, either.


	2. Chapter 2

The doorbell at Malfoy Manor rings. It’s Monday, and it’s nine in the morning.

Draco crawls out of bed to answer it, trying to cast a spell for his headache on the way but failing miserably and almost tripping on the stairs. One of the house elves is on her way to answer the door, but Draco dismisses her with a wave of his hand and, taking a deep breath and hoping this isn’t someone here to jinx him, opens the door without checking first.

Much like he expected, it’s Charlie, nestling two takeaway coffees under his arm.

“Fuck off,” he says. “I’ve got a hangover.”

“I’ve got Ibuprofen in my pocket,” Charlie offers. “And these coffees. And you shouldn’t be drinking.”

“I can drink whenever I want to, Weasley. It’s my house. But come in; I could use the painkillers.” He steps up and aside to let Charlie in, snatching a coffee out of his hand; he doesn’t care what kind it is, so long as it contains caffeine. His headache is murderous, throbbing, like stab wounds to his brain with two knives: one sharp, one dull.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.” Charlie gives him a look, and he sighs. “Mostly the head.”

Charlie casts something wordlessly that relieves some of the pressure and tosses Draco a small box of Ibuprofen; he takes two with his coffee, wishing he could take more and wondering if there are spells in case he overdoses. Or maybe he should just overdose instead and leave it, but he pushes the thought away. _Those are not productive thoughts_ , he tries to tell himself. Sometimes he struggles.

“Now,” says Charlie, pulling two bagged morning rolls from his pocket (he chants an Undetectable Extension Charm on every pocket he has). “I had to owl your parents after the last time I saw you...” Draco doesn’t want to think about it – the vomiting, the bleariness, the shouting, Charlie grasping him firmly by the shoulders and demanding that he get his shit together, and everything that he doesn’t remember. Sometimes he considers stopping drinking just because he hates not remembering, but the swell of feelings in his chest when night falls propels him back in a vicious cycle, and somehow it almost always ends on the ward, Charlie sitting on his blue plastic chair and looking less and less impassive and more delicately pained as the nights go on. “Have you gotten anything back from them? I doubt they’d send anything back to me.”

“No,” Draco says, spitting the syllable. “Who said you had the right to tell my parents anything?”

“It’s Ministry procedure for all volunteers. They believe it’s important for war survivors to have a line of communication and constant support; therefore, seeing you in such a crisis, I was obliged to send an owl to your parents making sure they knew about your situation. Something like that.” Charlie can’t face looking at Draco – he felt bad enough, having to send the owl, but knowing that Draco is angry makes it worse. He doesn’t want to aggravate the situation: he’s just trying to help. “What do you take in your rolls?”

“I’ll have what you’re having,” Draco replies, half-heartedly browsing the leaflet in the packet of Ibuprofen and trying not to think too hard about the side effects. “What did you say to my parents, exactly?”

“Not a lot. I said that you’d been having some trouble lately, and that I thought they ought to know. They don’t know anything.”

Draco pauses, and sighs. “Thank you for not telling them. But that doesn’t mean I forgive you in any way.”

“I didn’t ask you to forgive me,” Charlie says softly. “I just want to make sure that you were alright. I don’t get anybody coming to the ward as often as you, so I was worried.” He cooks sausages and bacon, using his hands rather than his magic; he feels bad, seeing Draco never touching his wand, and yet he whips his out for the slightest thing. “And, if I’m really honest with you, I don’t like being home. Everybody’s struggling, and it’s hard.”

“So, what? You come to the house of an alcoholic to avoid the struggle?” Draco snaps.

“No, that’s not it.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know, Draco. You just seem like you need someone around, and I’m sure my family can survive without me for a few hours.”

“There’s enough of you for them to not notice, I suppose.”

Draco’s headache calms as he eats, and, with a lack of things to do, he decides to show Charlie around more of Malfoy Manor than the kitchen. He knows Charlie is academically inclined, more so than most of the Weasleys he went to school with, and a vague part of him hopes that he might appreciate the library, or perhaps even the architecture, if he’s not too busy being a sap, which is really the problem of every Weasley: they’re too busy _worrying_ and _feeling_.

Though Draco has started to feel, and that’s his problem, isn’t it? The reason he has a Weasley round at his house in the first place, making that face of pity at him like he deserves it or needs it.

Either way, Charlie seems to appreciate the library, running his fingers along the spines, creating finger-shaped lines in the dust. He pauses every now and then to take one from the shelves with the gentlest of cracking sounds as the covers ease themselves apart, flicking through the pages carefully, holding the books in the way that they should be, treasured. “You don’t dust these?” he asks, slotting a book back into place.

“I don’t let the house elves in,” Draco replies. “These books are half of the Malfoy fortune. I wouldn’t let them anywhere near here.”

“But you don’t dust them?”

Draco says nothing; he’d rather not admit to anyone, least of all Charlie, that he’s been struggling to cast spells at all. He doesn’t have the focus or the drive anymore, and he takes a seat in the library’s armchair, coated in a layer of dust, watching as Charlie enthusiastically pulls out an old copy of a bestiary on dragons, flipping through it and coughing as a plume of dust rises up from between the pages.

For the briefest of moments before he resumes his reading on Swedish Short-Snouts, he looks up. “Do you want me to dust them?”

“Piss off, Weasley.”

“All the way out?”

Draco is tempted to levitate one of the books and throw it at Charlie’s head, but he reminds himself that he is above that level of pettiness (if it were Potter, on the other hand...). “No. Just don’t dust the books.” He hides the smile behind his hand as Charlie returns to the book, looking spellbound; there’s not a particular influx of students keen to work with dragons, resulting in a lack of literature, but this book is detailed, telling dragons in the way he knows them.

“Why do you drink, Draco?” he asks, rather suddenly, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the book in his lap.

“That’s a stupid question,” Draco says gruffly. Charlie acknowledges that, perhaps it is, but he doesn’t know. He’s not a mind reader.

“I’m just curious. If you don’t mind telling me.”

He shrugs. “I get bored, and lonely.” It’s a terrible lie, one like when Percy accidentally knocked over a vase and, with a look of fright, standing right next to it, told Charlie he hadn’t done it. He does get lonely, and that’s true, but that’s not much of the reason – it’s just a fraction, and Charlie can tell, but he didn’t tell Percy off that time, and so he lets it slide. It’s not his job to pressure Draco into spilling all his secrets, anyway. It’s not even his job to be here at all. He’s just concerned.

Draco drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. “You can have that book, if you want.”

“Oh, no. Sorry. It’s yours. I just haven’t seen such a good explanation of dragon behaviour written down before; everything I know, I’ve either learned or been told in person...” Charlie scratches the back of his neck, shutting the book with a gentle puff of air and dust.

“What’s it like working with dragons?” Draco asks, curious. All he knows about working with dragons is that it’s dangerous: Charlie’s arms, where his sleeves are rolled up, are a mess of splattered scars and freckles, and he can never quite tell where one stops and the other begins.

He wonders what it’s like to touch Charlie’s arms. Do the scars feel different? Are they rough, course, smooth? Do they still hurt?

“I had to put my next of kin on the application form, firstly,” Charlie chuckles. “It’s pretty dangerous – there’s no opportunity for resting, anyway. You have to always be aware, but even then, they’re finicky. Hence the scars.”

“A job for idiots, then.”

“Exactly!” Charlie says cheerily. “No-one with any sensibility would work there, and that’s why it’s my perfect job. Besides, I like dragons. They’re fascinating, but everybody is put off studying them just because they’re dangerous. I want to find out more about them, so that we can understand them better.” He grins, pushing one of his sleeves back up where it’s come rolling down his arm; it’s surprising to Draco, really, that someone can be so brutally serious and then so happy in a matter of mere moments. “And, come on, who doesn’t want to be the first person to tame and ride a dragon?”

“I can think of one person,” Draco says, “and that person is sitting here in this very chair.”

“No?” Charlie smiles. “Oh well. But I’d like to be able to do that – not that dragons will ever be really tame, since they’re rather a lot like lions. But if I work hard, I could build up respect, maybe.”

Draco wishes there was something he had faith in, something he could love the way that Charlie loves dragons. Maybe then he wouldn’t be here, wasting away in a too-big mansion with no-one but house-elves and a bottle for company, and would actually be doing something with himself.

At that moment, an owl comes clattering up against the window, scrambling for some kind of purchase; Draco gets up and opens it, accepting the letter. It’s not hard to tell who it’s from: the beautiful black wax seal on the envelope belies its senders, and though he would usually dismiss Charlie at this point to mull over his options in private, the Weasley isn’t bothering him, just perusing his bookcases.

Plus, he could use the company.

“My parents are on their way back,” he says. Really, he’s glad; he does love them, and though he’s not sure they’re going to be of brilliant help in his current condition, he might appreciate the house being less empty.

“That’s good,” Charlie says enthusiastically.

“Great. Now, could you fuck off, all the way out this time?”

“Sure,” Charlie laughs. “My pleasure.”

Draco walks him to the door, mostly because he doesn’t want to stay in the library anymore – one day, perhaps, he’ll have himself together and be able to dust the shelves and read the books and enjoy them again. Charlie looks for a moment like he’s just going to leave, to troop out like he does, but he pauses, turning back with a grin.

“I hope to never see you again?” he says, hopefully. Draco rolls his eyes, but snorts, amused.

“That’d be lovely,” he replies, and watches Charlie Apparate into the distance.

He feels a twinge in his stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

Charlie can always tell when a storm’s coming – he doesn’t know where he developed the ability, or when (it could be a side effect of working with dragons), and as he places a steaming bowl of soup in front of George, he has the distinct feeling that there’s something not quite right with the atmosphere.

It could, of course, be that he’s standing in George’s aura, which always feels unsettled; but he has a feeling it’s so much more than that, and he drums his fingers on the kitchen counter.

“Something up?” George asks.

“The air feels funny,” Charlie mutters.

“I know; it’s been telling me great jokes today,” George quips; it’s a little heartless, still, but him speaking is still something that Charlie revels in every day – living in a house with a silent George left him reeling, confused, feeling like he was in the wrong place, like he’d accidentally wandered in with the wrong family. He thinks it’s true of everyone: nobody feels quite right anymore, like there’s a rift in everybody’s world. Draco’s, particularly.

It’s not just death that’s ripped people apart, he supposes.

He thinks he might’ve been wrong by the time he gets to the ward; it’s almost the next day, and yet it’s been quiet. The heavens open on him on his way to St Mungo’s – he always Apparates twenty minutes away, so that he can walk and think and end up like this, soaked through from the incessant downpour.

He taps his wand to the centre of his chest and dries off immediately, running a hand through his hair and sighing as he drops back down onto his plastic chair. _That’s it_ , he thinks. _I’m Transfiguring this thing tomorrow. Everybody will thank me_.

Just as he gets up to stretch out his back, thankless for the chair, he hears the crack of Apparition; he hates the noise now, always some indicator of someone arriving and needing some kind of urgent help. Nobody’s ever Apparated to the veterans’ ward in the middle of the night for a cheese sandwich before, and he sticks his head out the door, only to be met immediately by the face of Lucius Malfoy, seething with rage.

Charlie moves back to let the Malfoys in; Narcissa is supporting Draco, who can barely walk on his own – Charlie has to hold in a wince at the sight of him, trying to remain calm and professional: there’s a difference between speaking to Draco on his own and when addressing his family.

“Mrs Malfoy,” Charlie says, keeping his voice as tempered as he can, “can you tell me what’s happened here?”

“Excessive alcohol consumption,” Lucius snaps. “He asked for you. What are you doing with him?”

Charlie shrugs. “Let’s just say that this isn’t the first time he’s been here,” he says, hefting Draco onto his own shoulder, though he barely weighs a thing – he’s a lightweight in more than one sense of the word. “I think I’m going to have to take him to a Muggle hospital. It looks like he might have alcohol poisoning, and all the sobering spells in the world aren’t going to help that.”

“You can’t take him to a _Muggle_ hospital,” Lucius spits; Narcissa grabs his arm.

“If that’s what he needs, then take him there,” she argues. Charlie nods, shifting his feet to neatly avoid being thrown up on by Draco, who groans under his arm. “If you could send us the address so that we could visit him, please.”

“Of course,” Charlie says. “I’m sorry this is happening to him. You might want to speak to the receptionist upstairs and she can probably refer him to some kind of specialist psychological help – I think he might need it.” He gives them a weak smile, bids them goodbye, and turns.

-

The Muggle doctors make Charlie sit outside for a long while, on hard plastic chairs that this time he knows he can’t Transfigure. He still has Muggle money in his pockets, so he pays for a coffee from a machine that makes it for him (he reminds himself to tell his father about this), but it doesn’t taste great, so he dumps sugar into it and stirs it with a little wooden stick until it tastes strange and sickly. He can hear the doctors and nurses and the people in scrubs with clipboards and serious faces talking, but they’re using too much jargon for him to understand, and so he grips at the coffee cup and just drinks more, trying to count the change in his pocket and figure out if he has enough left for a chocolate bar.

He asks a girl with curly blue hair who makes his heart twinge as she reminds him of Tonks, and she frowns at him, but assumes he’s just tired from making an ER trip late at night and helps him count it out. He has money for two, so he buys a packet of Maltesers, which are chocolate balls with a honeycomb centre, and a bar of Milky Way, which has nougat and caramel and milk chocolate. He’s never really eaten Muggle chocolate in Britain before, and it doesn’t taste quite as good as the stuff from Romania.

He’s let in eventually; Draco looks a state, with his shirt half-unbuttoned and his chest damp with sweat, his hair mussed and greasy, head hanging over the side of the bed as vomit dribbles down from his lips into a cardboard bowl.

“They remind me of everything,” he whispers to Charlie before flopping back onto the bed. “My parents. What the fuck am I meant to do?”

“I’d start by not contracting alcohol poisoning,” Charlie replies.

“I didn’t mean to,” Draco groans. “I didn’t know you could _do_ that.”

“Alcohol is a poison.”

“No,” Draco wheezes, giggling, reminding Charlie that he is, indeed, still wankered. “It’s a _gift_. I got you, haven’t I?” He paws at Charlie’s hand until Charlie lets him take it, letting Draco squeeze and run his thumb all over the lines and marks and moles that make up his palm. He gulps. Charlie has never let anyone hold his hand before, because he’s never _been_ with anyone before; he never had any interest, preferring just to have friends and then to spend the majority of his time with dragons.

In this moment, Draco feels more dangerous than any Hungarian Horntail.

“Weasley bastards. The lot of you.”

“Yeah,” says Charlie, clasping his fingers over Draco’s to squeeze his hand. “We are, aren’t we?”

-

He doesn’t get home until past breakfast time, so everyone is up and awake, and he curses his luck as he sees that Bill and Fleur are visiting; he climbs in through the window in the kitchen, a shortcut he’d shown the twins before they’d ever used it.

He still has half a Milky Way stuffed in his pocket, so he eats it, spread-eagled on his bed, wondering what the spiral of feelings in his chest are meant to _mean_. He’s never really dealt with complicated emotions – the most complicated he’s ever gotten is the time he could barely motivate himself to study for his N.E.W.T.s because he was so tired of the same day-in day-out pressure, but Bill had sent owls of reassurance and Percy had helped him study, telling him that they could do it together.

He rolls over onto his side and sighs, watching the photo on his nightstand of him and Tonks; they were close friends at school, and even though he’d spent years without seeing her, that doesn’t stop him from missing her. There’s nothing like the bonds formed at school, he thinks. They might not always be true, sometimes formed out of necessity, but at a boarding school, there’s a closeness: he saw people in their worst days, or in their pajamas with bed head and bags under their eyes they could carry groceries in, in the putting of an arm around people who are crying in the corridors, whether he knew their name or not.

Charlie suffers; he thinks he can understand why Draco drinks, surrounded in that house by memories of Voldemort, of Death Eaters, of kidnapping and abuse and darkness. He would, too, if he weren’t so tied up with making sure everyone else in the family didn’t have a meltdown first.

Someone raps their fist against the door and he starts, sitting up as Bill and Ginny let themselves in. Bill looks more relaxed, having spent many an evening talking seriously with Charlie before, but Ginny looks almost guilty; she’s still not used to having to be the one to try and mentor her older brother.

“Alright, Charlie,” Bill says, sitting down next to him, bouncing on Charlie’s mattress, which he’s always preferred to his own. “Something’s bothering you. We want to know what it is.”

“I’m fine, Bill,” Charlie says defensively. Ginny sighs.

“You can tell us, Charlie,” she says, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “I was possessed by Voldemort, and Bill has a scar on his face from a werewolf. I think we can help you handle whatever’s going on. And don’t think it’s trivial. George started crying yesterday because I gave him his dinner on the wrong plate.”

Charlie winces. “Is he okay?”

“No idea. Dad’s looking into sending him to a Muggle psychologist. But it’s not about George, Charlie.”

“We’re not judging,” Bill offers.

“Fine,” Charlie says, straightening up his back, feeling the tension reach a climax in the room as his siblings stare at him keenly. “You know how I’ve been working at the St Mungo’s veterans ward for the past couple of months?” They nod. “Well, I get a lot of visits from Draco Malfoy, and I started visiting him because I was worried. I just think I’m getting in too deep now – I’m worried about him, and last night I had to take him to a Muggle hospital for alcohol poisoning, and...” He pauses, having run out of steam, and makes do with a shrug.

Bill sighs, but not unkindly, putting an arm around Charlie. “There’s such a thing as worrying about _too_ many people.”

“It’s a bit late to leave him now,” Charlie points out. “He needs my help. I need to go see him, to make sure he’s alright.”

“Or, I don’t know, you could sleep?” Ginny suggests. “If he’s in hospital, he’ll survive until tomorrow.”

“You should probably stop working there for now, mate,” Bill says gently. “Bit too much pressure. It’s still too soon to be doing this much. I’ll see if I can go along and tell them you’re not going to be in tonight, and we can think about what you’ll do after.”

“No,” Charlie says pointedly. “People need help.”

“Not your help personally. And I think you need help in the form of some shut-eye. Just for tonight.”

“Fine. But we compromise, because I’m going to Draco’s tomorrow.”

“Sure. But don’t go getting attached to any other patients, Charlie, because even a heart like yours can’t take everybody’s trouble.” Bill prods his chest; he knows Charlie too well, knows his want to take everybody under his wing like a mother goose, all his mum’s son.

“You shouldn’t waste your time on him,” Ginny says spitefully, taking a seat on the floor by Charlie’s booted feet, the brown leather worn and tattered. “Malfoy’s a nasty bastard. He’s probably just using you.”

“No,” Charlie mumbles. “I don’t think he is. He needs help.”

“And what’s he giving you in return?”

Charlie toys with the zipper on his hoodie. “I don’t know. But I like spending time with him, even if he can be a precocious and unkind wank.”

“Yeah,” says Ginny, “that sounds like him.”

-

Charlie sleeps through most of the day and re-emerges sometime in the late evening. He can feel the atmosphere in the living room – George is lying listlessly on the sofa and Ron seems to be picking his clothes apart thread by thread. Percy is in the kitchen, and he doesn’t even wait a half-second before throwing his arms around Charlie, which would once have been an alarming gesture, but since the war, he never seems to greet his own family without some sort of hug, as if he’s not entirely convinced they’re real until he can feel their heartbeat.

“Bill told me everything,” he says, flicking his wand at the kettle. “You need to stop overworking yourself, Charlie. It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too, Perce. Back for dinner?”

“Quite. There’s something mildly dismal in living twenty-four seven with war survivors.” Charlie nods: he’d never expected Percy, of all people, to offer out his house to survivors that were either displaced or just didn’t want to be in their own homes for whatever reason, but it’s almost as if the guilt was tearing him apart and he had to do _something_. “Though there’s something mildly dismal about everyone these days.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s hard to be happy after a war when so many people have died,” Charlie murmurs, finding a box of teabags in the cupboard. “Have we only got extra strong left?”

“Yes, sorry. George and Bill drank their way through everything else today.” Percy starts as an owl whacks against the window, a little harder than it had expected, and as he opens it to let the bird in, it knocks over the jar of pasta they keep on the kitchen counter. “Oh, dear.” He relieves the owl of the letter it’s carrying and Charlie holds it still, waiting for the dazed spell to pass as another owl arrives, passing a letter on to Charlie. “I didn’t know we were this popular.”

“I know,” Charlie agrees with half a grin, unrolling the parchment meant for him. Despite the length of the parchment being not at all short, it’s of few words: _Not your fault. Hate this place. Parents seeking help. Smashed all the bottles in the garden when I got home.  –D.M._

“From the look on your face, I’m going to wager that’s from Malfoy?” Charlie looks up – Percy, of course, has already consumed the lengthy letter delivered to him, and is watching with a steady gaze. He nods.

“Just an apology for last night,” he says. “How about yours?”

Percy’s face twitches for the briefest of moments, but he shakes his head. “I just have to get back home now. I’m sorry. It’s important.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know you’ve got other people to look after.” Percy smiles and steps out, promising to be back for dinner again the next day, and Charlie pours himself the cup of tea. He feels overwhelmed with thought, but glances back at the parchment left for him, and he smiles.


	4. Chapter 4

The doorbell at Malfoy Manor rings. It’s Thursday, and it’s noon.

Mrs Malfoy answers the door to Charlie, who smiles politely. “Hello,” he says, “I was wondering if I could come in and see Draco. I wanted to make sure he was alright after the last time I saw him.”

“Of course,” she says, letting him in. “Thank you very much for helping my son. I’m very glad he had someone looking out for him while he was away.”

“No problem,” Charlie replies, heading up the stairs. “I just wanted to help him out.” Narcissa smiles, navigating him to Draco’s bedroom; it feels like a labyrinth of corridors, and Charlie almost feels dizzy as he reaches up to knock on the dark wood door to Draco’s bedroom, the sound almost echoing.

Draco is surprisingly dressed when he answers the door; Charlie holds in his shock, being very used to living in a household full of people who flop about in pajamas all day, and smiles. “Hey,” he says, and Draco rolls his eyes and steps aside, letting Charlie in.

His room is rather miserable-looking, in some kind of Edwardian or Gothic style (Charlie can’t tell the difference), with large black curtains draped over the windows and a four-poster bed so large that the name king size just isn’t fitting. He tries not to feel jealous of the artwork carved into the ceiling, or of the statues in every corner of the room, or of Draco’s massive wardrobe or his oak desk or anything – but, he supposes, this room feels entirely dismal. The Burrow feels like home to him, and he has a feeling this place never could, regardless of its history.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to face you gloating,” Draco says, sitting back down on his bed and folding his arms.

“Gloat about what?” Charlie asks, rummaging in his side bag and pulling out a small cardboard tub with steam pressed up against its transparent lid.

“That I was drinking.”

“Why would I gloat about that?” Charlie frowns. “I just came to see if you were okay. I was worried, after seeing you at the hospital. And I brought mac and cheese!” He proffers the tub. “George and I made it this morning. Mum’s recipe.”

“I don’t know if anyone ever told you, Weasley, but food is hardly a remedy to mental illness,” Draco mutters, but he takes the tub anyway as Charlie procures a fork from his bag, casting it clean. Draco takes it, but feels the need to cast the spell again himself, not sure if he trusts Charlie’s magic.

With a sudden twinge in his gut, he realises it’s one of the first spells he’s cast in weeks, and for not a moment did he doubt his ability.

He tries to dismiss the thought as he tucks in – he doesn’t eat a lot of macaroni, as it’s hardly gourmet cuisine, though he knows it’s good. It tastes _great_ , actually, filling and cheesy and hot. “How _is_ George?” he asks, inviting Charlie to sit down, dipping into the mattress as he does.

“Not well,” Charlie sighs. “I think it’ll be a long road for him. And for everyone.”

“Why does everything have to take so bloody long?” Draco groans. “Why can’t I wake up tomorrow and not need a drink? Why can’t you wake up and not be bound down by your brothers?”

Charlie finds another fork in his bag and steals a mouthful of macaroni, much to Draco’s chagrin, pausing midway to his mouth as the cogs in his brain turn and spout an epiphany. “Draco,” he says very suddenly, speedily chewing his food (it _does_ taste good). “I’ve got an idea. It’s a really good idea, I think, it might be good for you – you remember my brother, Percy?”

“The poncy brat who was Head Boy of Gryffindor? Of course I do. He was extremely irritating.”

“Right, well.” Charlie swallows a laugh. “At the moment, his house is open to anybody who wants a place to stay that isn’t their own home, for whatever reason. Harry is staying with him right now, as he doesn’t really have anywhere to go yet, and I think he’s housing a Slytherin girl that was in the same year as you? I’m not sure; he doesn’t talk about it much. But it might be more helpful to stay there for you – you’ll have to help out around the house, obviously, but that stops moping and forces you to actually do things, like I was trying to get George active by making him help me this morning, and because there are quite a few people living there, you could have them make sure you don’t drink...” Draco doesn’t look convinced, so Charlie lets off the heat and leans back. “Think it over. I’d really love to not have to see you on the ward again.”

“You know how to be charming, Weasley,” Draco retorts.

“It’s just the truth,” Charlie shrugs.

“I know. I wouldn’t like to have to see you there, either.” Draco scratches at his pinky with his thumb on the hand holding the fork, and he looks over at Charlie, steeling his nerves. “But I’d... like to keep seeing you. Much as it pains me to admit it, I like your company.”

“Me, too. You’re better than the dragons.” Charlie grins.

“Next time you come round, please, bring more of this,” Draco continues, gesturing to the macaroni cheese. “This is wonderful. I’d pay you for this.”

“I’m a volunteer worker. I do this for free, because I want to do it, and because I think it’s important. Things like these, we shouldn’t charge for. Help. Especially in times like these.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so poor.”

“Excuse me?” Charlie quirks an eyebrow, keeping his anger at Draco’s flippancy under his thumb.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but you’re hardly going to get any money from free kindness.”

“Some of us don’t think the world revolves around money, Draco. Some of us think the world revolves around that free kindness.” Charlie pokes a fork into the tub and eats another mouthful of macaroni, his lips beginning to form into a grin – he’s not going to be angry, he reminds himself, not when Draco has been brought up this way, in money. “Besides, I wouldn’t make that macaroni if you paid me. I’d only do it for free.”

Draco finishes the tub. “Fine. Then, for free, make more.”

Charlie grins, this time all the way. “Only if you’ll help.”

-

Draco has never made _any_ food before, never mind macaroni cheese. Charlie sings as he makes it, belting out Weird Sisters hit after Weird Sisters hit like he’s not a Weasley in a Malfoy household, taking over the house-elves’ jobs one by one. He has Draco do other things, simultaneously, and though Draco isn’t sure he’s happy about being belittled to the role of grating cheese, it’s something to do.

“You must be hungry for a second portion,” Charlie says, examining the Malfoys’ spice rack with glee. “Perce can never eat more than one. Ron, of course, eats two.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Draco grumbles, not one to forget Ron’s ferocious appetite any time soon. Any time he’d glare over to the Gryffindor table, Ron would always be stuffing his face with something or other, and the memories seem scorched into his brain. “I just haven’t eaten much since I got home.”

“Don’t eat too much at once. Sometimes it comes back up. We’ll share this half and half, alright?”

“No! We’re not sharing it half and half.” Draco pouts. “Three to one.”

Charlie rolls his eyes. “I’ll take the one, then.”

They eat up in Draco’s room, again, to save Charlie the indignity of being glared at and stared at by Lucius, who seems to be lurking around every corner. Charlie eats by refilling his tub, and he wanders aimlessly up and down the incredible length of Draco’s bedroom, peering at the chests of drawers and blowing a layer of dust from the top of one. “You really should dust,” he says.

“Why? It’s not going to harm anybody.” _I’m still not strong enough to dust, you ginger arse_ , he thinks, but he’s hardly going to admit to being so wobbly that the best spell he’s cast in possibly months was one to clean a damn fork.

“Makes you sneeze,” Charlie shrugs. “And it makes you seem like you don’t really live here.”

“Perhaps I don’t feel like I do.”

“It might help if you dusted.”

“Piss off, Weasley! I’ll dust if I bloody well want to.”

“All the way out?”

Draco wheezes, exasperated, resisting the urge to fling himself back onto the bed and splay out dramatically, but he’s eating, so he stays upright. “For fuck’s sake – no, not all the way out. I can hardly eject you before you’ve finished your lunch. When I want you to piss off all the way out and back to your patchwork home, I’ll make it clear.”

“I’m flattered that your _piss off_ has lost gravitas with me,” Charlie says in a voice that’s only faux sweet, and he laughs, as does Draco, unable to hold it in. He feels a weight lift off his chest: he only really feels like this when he’s with Draco, like he’s been released. There’s nothing like this when he’s with his brothers and sister, only feeling the hole in their lives, but he and Draco have nothing like that baggage, just the knowledge that Charlie is there to help and that Draco, somehow, finds him amusing and hasn’t kicked him out for good. He’d kill for this to be his everyday, though he supposes that murder would stick a wedge into this relationship, too.

Charlie’s never loved anything like this before.

When they’ve finished the macaroni cheese, he discovers another Milky Way in his pocket, and he holds it out to Draco. “Ever had one of these?”

“Do I look like I eat Muggle chocolate?” he says sarcastically.

“How about we change that? These are great.”

Draco gives it a wary glare as he tears open the packet, not sure he’s entirely alright with eating this, but he sinks his teeth into it and, in what seems unsurprising now, it tastes good. A little too sugary for his taste, but nice anyway.

He’d never expected to be spending his time with a Weasley enjoying Muggle chocolate or comfort food, but somehow this is what he’s become, and the worst part is that he’s enjoying it, too. The only problem is when he has to watch Charlie go and shut the door, and the emptiness and the pain and the reminder that this is where Voldemort tortured and killed people comes flooding back all at once.

Charlie nudges his shoulder. “Are you still with me?”

“No. I was thinking, and you interrupted my genius,” Draco retorts, finishing the chocolate bar.

“Thinking about what?”

“Things.”

“What things?”

“Do I have to tell you my entire life story before you’ll be content, Weasley?”

Charlie looks away. “I suppose not. I’m sorry,” he offers softly, not meaning to have bothered Draco so much. “I was just wondering if you were having not-so-pleasant thoughts. You didn’t look too happy.”

 “I don’t want to talk about it, Weasley. Piss off, all the way out, alright?” Draco folds his arms, and Charlie feels his chest ache with guilt and regret as he makes his way to the door, as does Draco, who looks up suddenly. “Wait. I’ll walk you to the door.”

 “Alright.” Charlie stops himself making a wisecrack and follows Draco along the maze of corridors and down the stairs, past the kitchen and all the way to the front door, which feels both like it’s miles away and not far away enough. Charlie pauses on the doorstep and turns around, wrapping his arms around Draco and squeezing him close. “Stay safe this time, will you? I don’t want to see you tonight. And no more hospitals, please.”

 “I’ll try,” Draco murmurs, trying to cling to the back of Charlie’s shirt in a way that he won’t notice. “I’ll try my best.”

 “Yeah?” Charlie grins, trying his own best to be hopeful and positive this time, because he’s been here just a few too many times to really trust that Draco won’t drink again, smashed bottles or not.

 “Yeah,” Draco says, but he’s not sure his best is good enough when the door shuts and he’s on his own again. He lets his fingers trail down the coated wood before turning around and heading back to his room, stopped only by the appearance of his father, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

 “What exactly _is_ the nature of your relationship with the Weasley boy, Draco?” he asks sharply. Draco bristles.

“I told you, and so did he. He takes care of me when I’m unwell.”

 “Don’t think I don’t see the way you look at him.”

 “With my eyes,” Draco snaps, and pushes past his father, storming up the stairs and hoping that Charlie won’t hate him.


	5. Chapter 5

Somebody knocks at the door of The Burrow. It’s Saturday, and it’s just past one in the morning.

Bill answers it, and upon seeing Draco Malfoy at the door, he just sighs. “You’re lucky Charlie pulled out of work tonight,” he says, and leads Draco carefully up the stairs, casting a Silencing Charm on him so that his drunken babble doesn’t betray his presence, and before he lets Draco into his and Charlie’s room, deciding he might sleep on the sofa tonight, he casts the charm on it, too.

He takes Draco by the shoulders. “Listen, I respect Charlie and he can do what he wants. But don’t you play with him or his feelings, or you’ll get it from me, alright? And I survived Fenrir Greyback. I’m serious.”

Draco nods, looking terribly sober for a moment, and Bill lets him in. Charlie is still awake, startled by his presence and by the idea that Draco would ever come here, and he sits up from his bed, crinkling his nose as he realises. “You’re drunk, Draco. Again.”

“Can’t do it,” Draco sobs, collapsing on the bed next to Charlie. “Can’t not drink. The house is killing me, Charles, I need you; I can’t be in that house without you.” He paws at Charlie’s hands, teary. “I’m sorry. You’re so _good_ , too.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Charlie says gently, surprised that Draco is being honest – he’s drunk, yes, but he’d almost resigned himself to the idea that he would never understand Draco or his reasons and would forever face a sardonic wall. “At least you’re here.” _With me_.

“Of course I am. I fucking need you, don’t I?” And Draco does it then, puts his hands on either side of Charlie’s face and moves to kiss him, but Charlie ducks back immediately, startled.

“No,” he says firmly. “Not while you’re drunk.”

Draco pouts, but apparently, drunk or not, he knows how to respect boundaries, so though he does his best to lie all over Charlie, he doesn’t try to kiss him again. Charlie’s heart pounds, and he feels sweaty, faced with this situation, one he’s never been in before, one where he just wants to kiss Draco and laugh with him. He’s never done this before. He doesn’t know what to do.

Draco yawns, spreading out on Charlie’s lap. “I’m sleepy,” he complains. “What’s the point of getting drunk if I’m just going to sleep?”

“So that you don’t cause any more havoc?” Charlie suggests, glancing down at Draco’s head on his lap. His eyes are far away, glazedly staring out, and his mouth seems to be moving to form words that don’t come out from his throat. “Or because you need the sleep.”

“Only if you’ll stay,” Draco insists. Charlie chuckles.

“I’m not going anywhere, Draco,” he says, and he means it.

He strokes Draco’s hair as they fall asleep, wondering how he got himself in so deep.

 -

 

When Charlie rouses, Draco is standing by the window, watching the fluffy white clouds scud by, his fingers knotted in the opaque curtains he’s holding open.

Charlie sits up abruptly, and Draco turns to look at him, muttering a greeting of “morning”, and then, swallowing and rallying his nerves, he says “thanks for not using me last night”.

“Using you?” Charlie asks, stretching out his arms, joints cracking in his elbows and in his thumb.

“You could’ve kissed me.”

“Oh!” Charlie nods in sudden understanding. “No, I would never. Not while you were drunk. I mean, you weren’t thinking straight, clearly, and it could’ve been any number of mistakes, and I wouldn’t liked to have taken advantage of the state you were in. If I’m going to kiss you, I’m only doing it if you mean it.”

“Are you suggesting that kissing me is something you’d like to do?”

Charlie shrugs. “If you’re interested.”

Draco laughs, running a hand through his hair – he’s been interested for a long time now, but had always been under the assumption that Charlie was either straight or too interested in dragons for anything else, and he can’t help himself but cross the distance between them and crouch down to press his lips to Charlie’s, which are immediately responsive, moving back against his.

Charlie laughs in the space between their mouths, resting a hand on the back of Draco’s neck to pull him closer. He’s used to thinking of Draco of cold, of the terrible insulation in Malfoy Manor that makes it far too drafty, but he’s warm and almost sweating; Charlie shifts back on the back to give Draco room to sit in front of him, trying to work out how kissing works and hoping that just going for it will bring him some eventual success, though Draco doesn’t seem to be complaining, tangling his fingers in the ginger scruff that reaches down Charlie’s neck.

“You should shave,” he says when they break apart to move, the way they were pushed up against each other proving a position difficult to keep. Charlie thumbs his beard with a look of abject horror.

“Absolutely not!” he argues.

“It’s so scratchy!”

“You’ll get used to it!”

“Weasley, I will shave it _in your sleep_ ,” Draco says, his face in a mock look of anger, but he’s cut off by Charlie kissing him again, and he can feel the smile on Charlie’s lips, almost breathless with the fact that he’s here, and that Charlie’s arms are around him, and that someone, in the midst of all this tragedy and pain, he’s fallen into something good.

When they’re done kissing, which isn’t for what feels like both an eternity and not long enough, Charlie gives in and shaves most of his facial hair, leaving a line around his chin so that it can’t annoy Draco without having completely given it up. “Do you want to Apparate away or do you want to have breakfast?” he asks, placing his straight razor back in the cupboard (Draco thinks that that explains why Charlie’s face is so often cut somewhere).

“Depends on how much your family will kill me,” he says. Charlie thinks about it.

“Ron’s in,” he says, “so you’ll get throttled. I could bring some toast up, though.”

“Have you got jam?”

“No. But I’ve got butter.”

Draco nods. “I’ll have toast, then.”

He waits in Charlie’s bedroom, ignoring Bill’s side, letting his fingers fall along the Weird Sisters posters. He sneaks a glance into Charlie’s wardrobe, which is surprisingly efficiently organised into piles of undergarments, with everything else hung up; Draco always knew that Charlie’s style was a little more out there than he’d seen, but he’s still surprised to catch a leather jacket at the back. He wears strange T-shirts, though: as Draco sifts through them, he wonders where Charlie gets these, as they seem to be from here and there, advertising this or that. One of them advertises a French Christian choir, and Draco doesn’t think Charlie was a part of that choir, peculiarly enough.

Charlie has a single bookcase that only offers a smattering of books. His copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ , Draco notes, is so dog-eared and tattered that he wonders how it isn’t just falling apart.

He opens the front cover: on the first page, in what must be Charlie’s surprisingly satisfactory handwriting, is written _this book is property of Charles Weasley_. He wonders if Charlie had saved up and bought the copy himself, if it has his own name in it, and he smirks just at the thought of Charlie saving up just for a textbook on beasts.

“Brought the toast!” Charlie says cheerily as he opens the door; Draco puts the book back and accepts the plate that’s floating over to him, with two slices of well-buttered toast. “Poftă bună!”

“What does that even mean?” Draco asks, sinking his teeth into the toast.

“It’s the Romanian version of bon appetit,” Charlie replies. “I think. Unless they’ve been lying to me and making me curse every mealtime for the fun of it, but that would probably get boring quite fast, considering how many years I was there.”

Draco rolls his eyes, but can’t help himself from chuckling anyway. “That’s true,” he says, taking a seat on Charlie’s bed as he eats, though Charlie floats around like a ghost, wandering around as if he’s looking for something. Draco gets up to kiss him. “I think you were right.”

“Really? About what?” Charlie’s eyes light up; the prospect that Draco could be admitting defeat on anything is something new and unusual, and possibly exciting.

“Staying with your brother, even though he’s a poncy arsewipe.”

“Perce is _fine_ , once you get to know him. Besides, it’s not just him that’s there, though you’ll probably have to adjust to the downscaling, because his house isn’t exactly Malfoy Manor...”

“What, did you think I was expecting it to be?”

“No. But it’s a _lot_ smaller – I mean, it’s pretty big for a place in London that you can afford without being a millionaire, but it’s really nothing like the size of this place, either. Though I hear word on the grapevine that he’s broken a few laws and made entire rooms with Undetectable Extension Charms. He’s pretty notorious among circles for that.”

“I’m sure the Minister is turning a blind eye, what with Percy being a valued employee.”

“Well, Minister Shacklebolt was the one who insisted that Percy come back after he resigned. He reckons that nobody knows the laws better, so he’s always around consulting as well as working.” Charlie finishes his single slab of toast and sets the plate down on his nightstand. He kisses Draco’s forehead, his hand buried in Draco’s hair. “I’ll send him an owl to let him know you’re coming, then?”

Draco nods. “Yeah. Sure.”

Charlie’s owl lives downstairs, so he leaves to send the message. Draco finishes his own toast and sighs. He’s not keen to leave Malfoy Manor – he is glad to have his parents back, after all, but he just can’t stand it.

Maybe one day he’ll move back, but right now, he just can’t stay.

-

Draco isn’t sure he’s going to get along terribly well in Percy’s flat, not when he discovers that Charlie isn’t joking and that the flat _is_ tiny and cramped and that there are so many people crammed in there that he can’t avoid them all forever, but he finds himself surprisingly at home after a while. He’d expected tensions, what with being under the same room as Harry Potter, but it’s nice: they don’t argue, just help each other out; Percy shows him how to do some of the chores and Hannah how to cook meals – he’s barely ever done anything, thanks to the house-elves – and Neville keeps an eye on him every night, though Draco barely feels the urge to drink a drop. Most of them aren’t even terribly dismal, cracking jokes at and with each other when they can.

The only time he ever faces problems, really, are when the others struggle. He knows the feeling. Percy doesn’t seem to sleep, always up before anyone else and with the light in his room up to the early hours when Draco goes to bed, Harry seems to stare off into the distance most of the day, and, as he can tell, both Neville and Hannah have panic attacks: Percy takes responsibility for Neville’s, to the point of Apparating in from business meetings until it’s passed, and Neville and Astoria take care of Hannah’s. Draco helps where he can, though he’s never quite sure how to help anyone when he couldn’t even help himself.

He decides, at some point, that he’s not going to see Charlie until he feels like he’s better. Percy agrees to send the owl.

“Hermes is out,” he says. “You’ll have to wait until he gets back.”

“Oh, you can use mine,” Neville says, with a mouthful of grilled cheese, offering a grilled cheese sandwich to Draco, who politely declines.

“I didn’t know you had an owl. I thought it was just that escape-happy toad of yours.”

“Trevor? He’s in my room. Perce bought me an owl so that I could keep in touch with Gran and some other friends from school.” Neville disappears for a moment, returning with a small barn owl; Draco’s never been to the Owlery that Percy formed out of a storage cupboard, but he can hear them hooting during the night, and Neville’s barn owl seems particularly loud, nipping at him until he feeds her. “Alright, alright... So, where am I sending this?”

“The Burrow,” Percy says after a pause, not quite managing to lower himself to speaking with a mouthful of sandwich.  “Make sure his name is on it clearly, otherwise it’ll be taken as a free-for-all.”

“It’s pretty brave of you to do this,” Neville says, watching Draco roll up the parchment and hand it to his owl.

“Yeah, well, he’ll probably be wanking himself off in glee that I’m actually doing something productive,” Draco mutters, watching as Neville takes the owl back, smiles at her, and sends her out the window to The Burrow. He assumes Charlie will be pleased with this, but something at the back of his mind hisses that maybe it’s not, maybe Charlie will be furious, maybe Draco has ruined whatever they had.

He leans forward. “Hey, Percy.”

Percy glances up from his lunch. “Yes?”

“You don’t think he’ll mind, do you?”

“Charlie? Absolutely not. He’ll more likely be proud of you for taking a step forward, especially considering how much he loves you.” Percy takes a sip of water; Draco is surprised to hear him dropping the ‘l’ word, but he seems to do it so casually that it gives him hope. “There are fewer things that Charlie wants in the world more than for people to be alright – otherwise, he’d have gone back to Romania.”

“Why doesn’t he?”

“He’s taken it upon himself to keep an eye on George.”

“And you’ve just left him?”

One thing that Draco has noticed about Percy is that he doesn’t seem to react to taunting, at all. He’ll react to the taunting of anyone else – Draco has never seen anyone cast a Silencing Charm so quickly before – but he doesn’t seem to care when Draco attacks him personally. He pushes his glasses up his nose. “I highly doubt that anything bad will happen to George on the part of my absence. He seems fine in the care of my other siblings.”

Pansy pokes her head out from the living room. “Percy, Minister Shacklebolt needs your help again.”

“Already? I just got home!” Percy exclaims, and he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Right. I’m on my way. Draco, could you dust the bookcases while I’m away?”

Draco nods, knowing full well he can’t refuse when he does such a minimal proportion of house chores, watching glumly as Percy grabs his coat and disappears, away to consult on whatever he’s going to be made to consult on. He folds his arms.

“Where do we keep the cloths?” he asks Neville, who looks at him blankly.

“Cloths? Percy just uses magic for everything.” Neville pauses, something dawning in his eyes. “You’ve not been using any magic lately, have you?” Draco shakes his head, staring at the floor and pinning it with his gaze; he can’t _believe_ he’s let it slip to Neville Longbottom, of all people. “It’s okay. Harry hasn’t cast anything the whole time we’ve been here, and Pansy doesn’t much, either. Oliver doesn’t cast at all. Do you want me to do it?”

“No,” Draco says, determinedly. “I’m sure I can _dust_.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re struggling.”

“I am _fine_.”

-

Draco can’t dust. The magic isn’t coming out of him – he doesn’t remember the spell, or the wand movement, and of those cleaning spells he does remember, nothing seems to work, like he’s a pathetic first year student all over again.

The worst part is, though there are bookcases all over the house, he’s been working on the rows in the corridor. Everyone can see him fail, and nobody is saying anything, and he is _certain_ that he’s embarrassing himself.

Finally, Neville returns. “Let me help you,” he offers, and not unkindly, which makes Draco’s blood near boil. How can he be so damn _nice_ , after all he’s been through? “You want to see Charlie again, don’t you? Prove how far you’ve come? We all have to start somewhere.”

Draco sighs. “Fine. Show me.”


	6. Chapter 6

Pansy lets Charlie into Percy’s house. It’s Wednesday, and it’s just almost five in the afternoon.

“You’re not Percy,” she says sharply.

“No,” he says, “I’m not. I’m second best, really, but I was told you can’t get hold of him, so I’m here to help instead. Where is he?” She sighs, but leads Charlie through the corridor and past the wandering eyes of everyone told very sharply by her to fuck off and stay there and not try to help because too many people in the room will just be an aggravator, into Neville’s bedroom, where the owner of the room appears to be trying to pull all his hair out, with Draco eagerly trying to convince him to count to ten.

“Malfoy, Charlie’s here,” Pansy says; he glances up and offers Charlie a grin for the months they’ve not seen each other, the grin of _it’s amazing to see you_ , but he’s still busy attempting to talk Neville down from pulling his hair out so can say no more. She turns to Charlie. “He’s having another panic attack. Percy insists on dealing with him, and he has it down to a fine art, but we can’t _fucking_ get hold of him.”

“That’s strange,” Charlie frowns. “Any idea why?”

“I think he got drafted in to help take down a group of resurgent Death Eaters,” Harry offers from the doorway; Pansy cuffs his ear for leaving the living room, pinning him with a glare. “Sorry. Just... he told me yesterday. Said he was a bit nervous, but the Minister saw what he did to Thicknesse and wanted some skill like that for it.”

Charlie flinches. “You reckon he’ll be alright?”

“Well, he can cast a nasty hex pretty well,” Pansy offers. “He could probably run magical rings around all of us. If he would. Which he wouldn’t, I’m sure, the Gryffindor bastard.”

She’s soon interrupted by Neville, who can barely take in a breath. “I think I’m dying,” he wheezes out, falling against the wall. “I’m scared – shit, Draco, I’m really scared.” He looks around the room with pleading eyes, as if hoping someone can just lay a hand on him and help. “I need Percy.”

“When we can get word to him, he’ll be here,” Charlie says assuredly, gesturing for Pansy to kick Harry and herself out; they leave quickly, and Charlie crosses to Neville. “Okay, Nev. I know you’re scared. I need you to breathe, even if it’s hard. Breathe as I count, okay?” Neville nods, and Charlie counts him through his breathing, solid and steady, speaking like a leader, like he knows everything that’s best, the same way he spoke to Draco night after night on the ward. It almost takes Draco straight back, and he thinks for a moment he’ll have to leave, too, but he’s determined to see this through. “Awesome. You’re doing great.” Charlie smiles.

Between his and Draco’s continual efforts, Neville’s panic eventually passes and he sits down on his bed, staring at his feet. “I’m so sorry,” he says to Charlie, who just shrugs.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Charlie assures him, looking up as Pansy reappears, holding a letter and looking grim, flanked by what seems like a small army of housemates, despite the recent departures.

“It’s Percy,” she says. “He’s at St Mungo’s – it says he was hit by a Severing Charm and that he’s in bad condition, though he turned his attacker into a fish, if that’s meant to be any fucking consolation. Nice letters, aren’t they?” She looks up, face stony again. “You’re his brother. What do you want us to do?”

Charlie, not missing a beat, nods at Harry. “Harry, send a letter to The Burrow – no, send a Howler. A Patronus, if you can. Tell them everything you know about his condition. Is there anyone else we need to contact – a girlfriend or something?” Harry shakes his head. “Okay.” He turns his attention to Pansy. “Do you have any details on where in the hospital he is?”

“No, just what happened,” she says, handing him the parchment.

“Which Auror sent it?” Neville asks, getting up to squint over Charlie’s shoulder, finding the scrawled sign-off. “Auror Proudfoot – he’d tell me where Percy is, if I asked. He’ll probably be around reception; we’re not allowed in, most of the time.”

“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen: Harry’s going to get the news to my family, and I’m going to side-along Draco and Neville to St Mungo’s. I’ll send back news as soon as I get any. Clear?” The crowd nod and disperse as Charlie turns, proffering his arms to Draco and Neville; they’re there in an uncomfortable flash and Charlie feels a pang of relief that he didn’t Splinch anyone as Neville hurries off. He runs a hand through his hair, trying to take a leaf from his own book as he gathers deep breaths. He tries to distract himself from thinking about Percy, proud Percy, silly and stupid and smart Percy cut up by anyone, turning to Draco. “Any idea how he knows Proudfoot?”

“Longbottom’s an Auror,” Draco replies, sliding his hand into Charlie’s clammy one, sensing the unease and wishing he was better equipped to deal with the situation. “He was offered the post, but he just does the detective work. They’re apparently hard-pushed to find Aurors who are well enough to confront criminals, hence the use of your brother…” Charlie swears. “He’ll be fine. He really does cast some terrifying hexes to get us to stop fighting; he’s an impressive ponce.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says, biting back tears. “He is. Always could stop a fight.” He wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, trying to remain stoic – he’s been doing it since Fred died, because someone needed to not be crying, to make lunch, to make sure everyone else was alright, and he knows it’s not time to stop just yet.

He looks up as Neville comes running along the corridor, surprisingly deft, save for the skid when he stops that almost takes him off his feet. Charlie reaches out a hand and steadies him, sharing a small smile with Draco.

“I found out where he is,” he says, and they set off down the corridor – Neville knows them uncomfortably well, trying not to think about his parents in the other ward, as does Charlie, but Draco has never had the experience of walking through the corridors like this before. He’s never needed to. “They’ve healed him really well, but he lost a lot of blood, so he’s apparently not looking great and might take a while to recover from the blood loss... And he’ll have a scar.”

“Bill’ll be jealous,” Charlie responds with a laugh.

“What about you?” Draco asks, gesturing to Charlie’s arms, which are more noticeably beaten now that they’ve returned to their natural paler colour (he longs for the sun again; he feels like his own arms blind him every day).

“I didn’t get mine fighting Death Eaters,” he shrugs. “Not quite as cool.”

“I think dragons are pretty cool,” Neville remarks.

“Thanks,” says Charlie. “Not that it ever feels cool when they’re trying to kill me, but that’s my own fault.” He lets Neville lead them on, and Percy thankfully isn’t far, nor does he look bad: he’s pale, and a huge scar runs up his leg, from ankle to calf. Someone has cleaned the blood from him, but the sheets are still red, and Neville has to stop to compose himself, though Charlie doesn’t, pressing on to hug his brother tightly, much to the healer’s scorn. “Oh, thank Merlin you’re alright.”

“I have people to look after,” Percy says weakly, tremendously white. “I can’t go anywhere just yet.”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to tell George that.” Charlie sighs, hugging Percy again, though this time the healer drags him off, chastising him. “Don’t go Death Eater hunting again. You worried the shit out of me.”

“I won’t,” Percy assures him. “I didn’t much enjoy having to turn a bunch of new Death Eaters into a variety of harmless animals. I _did_ , however, enjoy making one of them vomit slugs. Do you remember when Ron’s wand backfired and he made himself vomit slogs and Fred and George sent you and Bill letters because they thought it was so funny?” Charlie nods, chuckling. “I was rather inspired. I’ll have to let him know.”

“Oh, he’ll love it.” Charlie glances up, almost sensing Neville’s anticipation from across the room, and he grins. “I think someone else might want to see you now. Something you want to tell me about this kid, Perce?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Percy says, giving Charlie a half-hearted glare; Charlie grins and scrams, taking Draco with him. He sends a Patronus to both The Burrow and to Percy’s house and Draco is surprised at how effortlessly he seems to cast it – Draco’s never managed to summon anything, not a non-corporeal Patronus, and Charlie, despite being in the hospital for his brother who he almost lost, is somehow able to summon a Patronus with practised ease.

As they walk through the corridors, Draco looks over. “What memory do you use?”

Charlie shrugs. “Lots of different ones. There have been lots of happy moments in my life – I remember Ginny and Ron being born, for example, and that makes me happy, or winning the Quidditch Cup before I left...” A smile plays on his lips. “And I bet you want me to say kissing you, and fine, I used that one just there.”

“I wasn’t, really,” Draco replies, shoving his hands in his pockets (he’s pleased, anyway, that he could mean this much to anyone; he sometimes wonders if anybody would care if he weren’t around, and though the thought is never usually serious, it eats away at him). “I would’ve thought it would’ve gone to your first kiss. Those are meant to be special.”

“Yeah,” says Charlie, “that was my first kiss.”

“Shit – really? But you’re... so _old_.”

“Thanks, Draco.”

“You know what I _mean_.”

“Okay, I do.” Charlie laughs softly. “I’d just never really been interested in anybody before – not romantically, anyway. I was expecting to spend the rest of my life alone with ten dragons.” He turns the corner into the reception, where Draco is almost floored to see what seems like an entire clan of Weasleys, all waiting with wide eyes. He’d be honoured to have that many people want to see him in hospital after being told he was alright.

Charlie leads them all through to Percy, and the healer on duty’s eyes almost pop from her head at the sight of them all – she starts to say something about that there _definitely_ shouldn’t be that many of them in the room at one time, but upon the realisation that nobody is listening to her as the hugs and affection start pouring in, she sighs and steps back, folding her arms.

Neville breaks his way out of the crush and hurries over to Draco. “He says we should just go home and he’ll be back soon.”

“And you’re going to go home?” Draco asks, quirking an eyebrow; Neville shakes his head. “No, I didn’t think so. Me neither.” He glances over at Charlie. “I was rather hoping that I might sleep somewhere else tonight...”

“Is that a suggestion?” Charlie asks, grinning like a prankster who’s just set off a smoke bomb, elbowing Draco. “Alright. You can come back to The Burrow with me, but I’m not hiding you from Ron this time, so come at your own peril.” He looks over at Neville. “You’re waiting on Percy, I presume?” Neville nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just got time to tell him I had feelings for him before you all barged in – I hope he doesn’t kick me out.”

“Oh, for Flamel’s sake,” Draco groans. “He feels the same way. It’s _so_ obvious – watching you two is just painful. If you didn’t already have a set of keys and live there, he’d probably have given them to you right then and there. Hell, if you’re lucky, you might get to move into his cramped room instead of staying in your own!”

Neville laughs. “Yeah, well, maybe I can see about him putting in a couple more Extension Charms...”

He starts as he hears the distinct pop of Apparition next to him, Pansy appearing by his side. “So, how is our daring and fearless leader?”

“He has a scar and he’s so pale he’s going to blind everybody, but he’s technically fine,” Draco reports, looking over at her. “I thought you weren’t going to be at home tonight, anyway? Don’t you have a date with that wonderful girlfriend of yours?”

“I moved it to tomorrow because I thought Percy was _dying_ or something of the sort. Little did I know that he was fine and that the Aurors seem to continue their trend of amateur fucking dramatics.” She sighs, shaking her head. “Never mind. Hannah came over to make a cake for Percy, for when he got back. When do I get to be popular enough for someone to make a cake for me?”

“Try taking in war survivors from all houses without discrimination and treating them with the respect they need and taking care of them, and then you might be lucky enough,” Charlie responds. “Or just ask me. I don’t have anything to do during the day.”

“He doesn’t,” Draco confirms. “Save me some cake, would you, Pansy?”

“Fuck right off; that cake is _mine_ ,” Pansy retorts. “If you want it, come home and eat it yourself.”

Draco looks over at Charlie, who just snorts. “Go on, then.”

-

Draco arrives at The Burrow by Apparition, arriving in all one piece in Charlie’s room by what could only be a miracle. Charlie is reading a Muggle novel, cross-legged on his bed, and he lets it drop beneath him as Draco surges to kiss him, his hands coming up to rest on Draco’s neck.

“Most people say hello,” he says breathlessly, shifting back to lean against the bedpost, giving him a support as Draco kisses him again, hungrily, though it doesn’t take him long to ease off, rolling to the side and tucking himself into the crook of Charlie’s arm, letting Charlie stroke his hair, revelling just in his company. Charlie sighs gently. “Mm – Draco, I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but I’m going back to Romania next month.”

Draco seems to take this in his stride. “Oh, that’s fine. I’ll come with you. How’s the weather?”

Charlie smiles, taking Draco’s hand. “Pretty good.”


	7. Chapter 7

Neville pokes his head in, eyes flicking from Draco to the suitcase on his bed, almost full. “Do you want to take your books with you?” he asks; Draco’s eyes flick up, and he nods, accepting the handful from Neville and pushing it underneath a few crisply pressed shirts. “I can’t believe you’re really going. It’s getting so empty here.”

“Isn’t it a good thing?” Draco asks, taking a sip of the coffee left on his windowsill; it’s been there all day, and as a result is cold, but he taps his wand to the side of the mug and it heats up. “It means we’re all better; means we can all get back to our own lives and not need interventions.”

“Yeah, it does, but it’s just strange that it’s so quiet now...” Neville pauses. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re okay and I think it’ll be nice in Romania, but I’ll miss you.”

“Will you? I’ve been an arsehole to you.”

“You had your reasons,” Neville replies softly – Draco’s right; he’s never quite forgiven Draco for everything, but that won’t stop Neville from missing his company, curled up on the sofa at night, flicking his way through book after book. He can see himself already, peering into the dark of Draco’s vacant rooms as if checking that he’s not drinking; it’s been his routine for the past few months, along with bringing back Muggle paperback novels from the nearby charity shop and dropping them at the end of Draco’s bed. “I just liked having other people around. I didn’t like it just being me and Gran after the war. Felt a bit... hollow?”

“Yeah,” Draco nods. “I know the feeling.”

Percy joins them, glancing over at Neville. “Oh, there you are. Could you check the toast when you’re next in the kitchen? It’s grilling.” Neville nods; Percy smiles, kissing his forehead. “Thank you. Now, Draco, have you definitely got everything?”

“I should do. It wasn’t as if I had much.”

“I’d double check, just in case. Someone always left something behind on our family holidays. Charlie will be here soon, so you ought to get your goodbyes in order.” Draco nods – he’s spoken to his parents already and made the trip to Malfoy Manor, neatly ignoring the look of abject horror on his father’s face as he admitted that yes, he was very much enamoured with Charlie, and that now, he was about to leave the country for him. Narcissa had been supportive, of course – “whatever makes you happy”, she’d said, not caring where Draco went so long as he was well.

The only people left in the house who aren’t him and Neville are Pansy and Anthony Goldstein, and he’s never been particularly close to Anthony, but they share a fairly firm handshake. “Good luck in Romania,” Anthony says with a smile.

“Yeah, you too. Though not in Romania.” Draco grins.

Pansy is a little more upset to see him go; they’ve known each other for much longer, and she has no idea how she’s going to cope without him there, but she, too, is glad to see things looking up for him. She doesn’t let go of Draco until he almost has to push her off.

“You can write to me, you know,” Draco suggests. “If you’re that distraught.”

“How am I meant to convey to you my intensely successful sarcasm in letter form? Besides, the international post takes ages.” She hugs him again. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me for a Weasley.”

“It’s hardly as if I’m leaving you in particular,” Draco snorts, shaking his head. “You’ll survive, I’m sure.” She sticks her tongue out at him, anyway, and he laughs, pausing as he hears someone knock at the door. “Merlin, he’s here already. Shit. I’m going to Romania.”

“Congratulations on working that one out,” Pansy says with a fourteen-carat smile, pushing him out of the living room and into the hallway. It is indeed Charlie, wielding an impressively small suitcase for someone about to emigrate; he’s hugging Percy tightly, so hard it’s almost a squeeze before glancing up at Draco and grinning, wishing there was some way of suppressing the excitement in his chest. He shouldn’t be that excited, really – his job consists mostly of almost being turned into a pile of ashes by dragons, but he can’t help himself.

“Cup of tea before you go, Charlie?” Percy asks politely.

“That’d be great, thanks,” he says, leaving his suitcase by the door and cracking his knuckles as he walks into the kitchen, Draco following behind. Neville has beaten them all there, watering the plants while keeping an increasingly wary eye on what might either become lunch or toasted. “So – before I go, good news; George starts working full-time today!”

“Oh, finally some good news that’s good,” Percy says with a sigh of relief. “Neville’s idea of good news is that he’s moving to Hogwarts to apprentice under Professor Sprout, which _is_ good news, but I can’t exactly come now, can I?”

“I can come home every night,” Neville suggests; Draco claps him on the shoulder in lieu of actually saying _congratulations_ , though Charlie says it out loud, sounding proud – he doesn’t know Neville, sure, but he knows that Neville deserves this and deserves something more than a job as an Auror who can’t even make it out into the field. “Besides, you’ll still have Pansy.”

“Aren’t I just thrilling company?” she says, leaning on the doorframe.

“Of course, dear. I truly can’t stand it when you’re gone,” Percy responds dryly, but with a smile of affection, taking his lunch off the heat; Neville blanches, but Percy waves a hand dismissively, insinuating with a mere gesture for Neville to not worry about it. “Charlie, can you open the window? I think I can see an owl.”

Charlie nods vaguely, waving a hand and internally giving himself a pat on the back as the window opens without the need for wand or word; he feels strange in Percy’s house, seeing his never particularly social brother fraternising so well and being able to so effectively command the house and the respect of the occupants – though, Charlie supposes, it’s hard not to respect somebody who’s taken you in out of the kindness of their own heart to try and help. He also supposes that everyone has grown, and developed.

Draco can tell that the post is for him just from the owl: it’s huge and majestic-looking, whereas the Weasley owls are all a little scruffy round the edges, and far larger than any of the owls from the Goldstein or Parkinson families. Neville passes the letter to him. “From your parents,” he says. “Wishing you luck.”

“From my mother, more likely,” Draco mutters, glancing over it – it’s in his mother’s handwriting, at least, though his father’s signature is attached at the bottom. Neville says nothing. “I wasn’t expecting them to care.”

“They’re your parents,” Neville says, giving the owl a pellet of something before it flies out; he shuts the window as it goes. “Of course they care.”

Charlie pours himself his cup of tea, resting his hip up against the kitchen counter. Percy pours himself a cup, too, filling it up with so much milk that Charlie’s not sure there’s really any tea in there at all. “So,” Percy says, stirring it, “you’re sure this is a good idea?”

“Nope,” Charlie replies breezily, “but I wasn’t sure this place would be a good idea for him, too, and it’s worked out. I just have to hope, right?”

Percy nods. “Yes. That’s true. Do send owls – if they try and charge you for international post, I’ll cover the fees.” He pauses, leaning in. “And – remember to look after yourself, won’t you? Just because he’s your worry doesn’t mean you should forget about yourself. You lost a brother.”

“Perce, I’m fine,” Charlie assures him. “I probably should’ve gone back out earlier, really. It always helps when I’m working with the dragons. And I could say the same to you.”

“Yes, well, I suppose my rebuttal is also that I’m fine.” Percy grins, glancing over at Pansy and Neville, who are arguing over about how much one of the plants is actually meant to be watered, while Anthony is asking Draco a slew of questions about dragons, none of which Draco can really answer, since _he_ isn’t the dragonologist. “You two should get going, I suppose. The longer it takes you to leave, the harder it’ll get.”

“Right,” Charlie nods, taking a long gulp of tea before gesturing Draco over. “We’re off on our way, then.”

“Have a good time in Romania,” Neville says surprisingly cheerfully, looking awfully supportive. Charlie grins.

“Good luck to you too,” he says with a smile aimed at both Percy and Neville; he acknowledges Pansy and Anthony with a nod, not wanting to insinuate that he doesn’t wish them both luck, too. “I hope things go well for you at Hogwarts, Neville.”

“Thanks,” Neville says, going red at the attention.

-

When they get outside, Charlie stops to double-check the address he’s been sent (they’d all been communally sharing a house before, until it had been irreparably immolated, and this time he has his own flat).

“You sure you want to do this?” he asks, leaning on his suitcase and scrutinising the paper in his hands. “I’m not always good, you know. Or perfect. I can’t always be helpful, or the person you want me to be. I can’t save you every day.”

“Yeah,” says Draco. “I know. I’m learning to save myself.” He takes Charlie’s hand. “I need to take these steps, otherwise I’m going to be stuck in bloody Malfoy Manor for the rest of my goddamn life, moping in the shadows and wondering where it all went wrong.”

“Alright,” Charlie says, with a smile. “Let’s go, then. We’ll celebrate when we get there with chocolate milk. I bought _loads_.”

Draco can’t help himself but laugh. He’s not perfect, but for right now, at least, he can look at Charlie with sober clarity and think with sober clarity that he’s hopelessly smitten.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I've freaking loved writing this fic, and hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing this. They're one of my favourite ships, and if you want to come yell at me, I'm over on Tumblr @chrlieweasleys! 
> 
> The title is from "Saint Simon" by The Shins, which is a great song and I listened to it a lot while writing this, but obviously I decided I had to substitute Charlie in there.


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